How to stop WordPress from sending comment email notifications

To stop WordPress from sending you email notifications whenever someone leaves a comment on your website (or when a comment is held for moderation), follow these steps. This applies to self-hosted WordPress.org sites (the most common case). The process is straightforward and hasn’t changed in recent versions.

Easiest Method: Via WordPress Dashboard Settings

1. Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard (usually at yoursite.com/wp-admin).
2. In the left sidebar, go to Settings → Discussion:

1. Scroll down to the section labeled Email me whenever (it’s usually near the middle of the page).
2. You’ll see two checkboxes:

• Anyone posts a comment — This sends an email for every approved/new comment.
• A comment is held for moderation — This sends an email when a comment is pending approval (spam filter, first-time commenter, etc.).

1. Uncheck both boxes (or just the ones you want to disable).
2. Scroll to the bottom and click Save Changes.

After this, WordPress will no longer send those comment-related emails to the site admin email address (the one set in Settings → General → Email Address).

• Note: This primarily affects notifications to the site administrator. If individual post authors have moderation rights, they might still get notifications for comments on their own posts (WordPress sends to authors who can moderate). To fully disable everything, see the advanced option below.
• If you’re on WordPress.com (hosted version), the process is similar but accessed via My Site → Settings → Discussion, or through your account’s notification settings at wordpress.com/me/notifications (under the Comments tab).

If the Above Doesn’t Fully Stop Emails (Advanced / Complete Disable)

Sometimes plugins, themes, or multi-admin setups cause emails to persist. In that case:

• Install a free plugin like Disable Comments (from the WordPress plugin repository) → it can globally disable comments and related notifications/spam.
• Or add this simple code snippet to your theme’s functions.php file (or better, use a plugin like Code Snippets to avoid theme update issues):

add_filter('notify_moderator', '__return_false', 999);
add_filter('comment_moderation_recipients', '__return_empty_array', 999);
add_filter('comment_notification_recipients', '__return_empty_array', 999);

This forcefully blocks moderator and comment notification emails site-wide.

Additional Tips

• If you’re getting tons of spam comments triggering emails → consider enabling comment moderation (in the same Discussion settings: check “Comment must be manually approved”) or install an anti-spam plugin like Akismet (free for personal sites) or CleanTalk.
• Test by leaving a comment yourself (or asking someone to) after saving changes—no email should arrive.
• These settings only control admin notifications. If commenters subscribed to follow-up comments (via “Notify me of follow-up comments” checkbox), that’s a separate feature—disable it in Discussion settings under “Other comment settings” if desired.

This should resolve the issue quickly. If emails still come through after these steps, it could be a plugin conflict—try temporarily deactivating non-essential plugins to test.